Observer News: Brandon Foundation, helpful neighbors aid victims of Riverview fire
Brandon Foundation, helpful neighbors aid victims of Riverview fire
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Penny_Fletcher on 05/02/2014 19:01:00
By PENNY FLETCHER
The Cozzetto family doesn’t have the money to hire an industrial crew to clean
up its burned-out mobile home. And some neighbors don’t like the pop-up
removed from a camper truck that the Cozzettos are living in, nor the portable
toilet on the Riverview property.
Other neighbors, and the Brandon Foundation, are helping the family, but the
Cozzettos worry their help will not come soon enough to keep ahead of code
violations.
Cleaning up the 2,300-square-foot burned-up home at 10809 McMullen Road on the
corner of Palm Avenue just southwest of Riverview High School is not an easy
task, said Eros Dahl, a local mortgage broker. He said he became involved
because he drove by the property and saw the family cleaning up the debris by
hand.
County code enforcement officials said no fines have been levied yet and that
they want to help by granting extensions to fix any code violations. But the
burned-out structure is dangerous, officials said, adding that the complaints
are valid.
Holly and Vince Cozzetto didn’t expect it to be easy when they moved to
Riverview from Georgia last September to help Holly’s 86-year-old father
through his last days.
They didn’t make it in time.
“He died before they got here,” said Randy Walter, a neighbor who recently
retired from the Air Force and now is employed at MacDill Air Force Base.
Gesturing at the burned-out home, Walter explained that he and his friends have
been trying to help the Cozzettos.
The couple was just completing the funeral arrangements when they realized the
home was subject to code violation.
According to Jim Blinck, operations manager for Hillsborough County Code
Enforcement, the first violation was written Oct. 18, before the fire and
before the Cozzettos became involved. That was issued because of a complaint
about a blue tarp that Holly’s father had on the mobile home’s roof, Blinck
said.
“Dad was old and couldn’t keep things up,” Holly Cozzetto said. Also
living in the home after falling on hard times were Holly and Vince’s pregnant
daughter and son-in-law and their two children, ages 1 and 2.
They all know they’re fortunate to have made it out alive, and the younger
family of four is now staying with friends. Holly and Vince, however, are living
in the donated pop-up and trying to clean up the property manually, which is
permissible without a permit because although the structure had built-on rooms
and looked like a house, it was a mobile home.
“A mobile home can be demolished without a permit,” said Blinck. “A
permanent structure can’t.”
Walter and his friends got involved because he saw the couple in the pop-up
trying to clean up the property by hand. None of them wanted to be photographed,
asking that the focus be kept on the Cozzettos.
One side of the property is covered with piles where burned boards have been
separated from metal and anything else that’s salvageable.
Dahl has called on his friends in the real estate business and a title company.
He has also contacted The Brandon Foundation. He said, “The Foundation has
provided for two dumpsters at $400 each, and is taking care of arrangements for
the portable toilet facilities, but these people need hands-on demolition help
out there.”
“I know Holly wants to keep the property,” said Walter. “But what would be
best would be to get a buyer — maybe someone who flips properties — to
advance the couple enough to move into another place and then pay them whatever
else they get from the property sale after the place is cleaned up.
“It’s obvious there’s no way to salvage the home,” he said.
Dahl said another possibility is enough monetary donations to allow the
Cozzettos to clean up the property and put another mobile home on it.
Dahl said he is busy with the Veterans Aid Committee of the Riverview Chamber of
Commerce but that he is continuing to try to help. He said he and several
friends have given the couple some Walmart gift cards.
“When there’s no electricity and no running water, there’s not any sense
in people bringing food,’’ he said. The Cozzettos are “better off buying
what they need by the day,” he said.
The Brandon Foundation is about to get heavily involved, said its executive
director, Rich Strehl. So far, direct contact with the family has been made by
Foundation member Alex Hebert.
The Cozettos say they’re caught between a rock and a hard place.
“I don’t have any idea what we can do,” Holly Cozzetto said. “We’re
doing everything we can.”
But her father had no homeowner’s insurance because it was a mobile home on
private property — not in a park — and that, she said, is very hard to
obtain.
Meanwhile, they’re living in the small pop-up with no running water, using the
donated portable toilet and using a generator for electricity. All of which
raises even more problems with county code.
Blinck said two inspections were made by code enforcement official Jeffrey Ramer
after the Dec. 22 fire and that officials are granting the couple more time.
“We want to bring this to resolution somehow,” Blinck said. “But at some
point, citations will have to be issued with some kind of time limit.”
County records also show that the home is on an acre and a half of land and that
the deed is in both Holly and a relative’s name. The relative of record is
listed as Ollie Camp, Holly’s brother.
Dahl said they need some help with someone who knows how to get the deed
“squared away” because there are problems with the deed.
The Cozzettos know this situation can’t go on this way for long.
“I’m just afraid we’ll be evicted before we get this thing straightened
out,” Holly Cozzetto said. “I don’t know what we’d do then.”
Those who want to help may contact info@brandonfoundation.com, Strehl said.